"Oh, wonderful! Thanks, Clee darling. But do you mean to actually say I can now completely block you or any other Prime out?" "You're going too far, ace. Me, yes--but don't forget that there very well may be people--or things--as far ahead of us as we are ahead of pointer pups." "Huh! Balloon-juice and prop-wash! I just _know_, Clee, that you're the absolute tops of the whole, entire, macrocosmic universe." "Well, we can dream, of course." Garlock withdrew his mind from Belle's and turned his attention to the now quiet Semolo. "Well, my over-confident and contumacious young squirt; are you done horsing around or do you want to keep it up until you addle completely what few brains you have?" The Lizorian made no reply; but merely glared. "The trouble with you half-baked, juvenile--I almost added 'delinquent' to that, and perhaps I should have--Primes is that you know too damned much that isn't true. As an old Tellurian saying hath it, 'you're altogether too big for your britches.' "Thus, simply because you have lived a few years on one single planet and haven't encountered anyone able to stand up to you, you've sold yourself on the idea that there's nobody, anywhere, who can. You're wrong--you couldn't be more so if you had an army to help you. "What, actually, have you done? What, actually, have you got? Practically nothing. You haven't even started a starship; you've scarcely started making plans. You realize dimly that the theory is not in any of the books, that you'll have to slug it out for yourself, but that is _work_. So you're still just posing and throwing your weight around. "As a matter of fact, you're merely a drop in a lake. There are thousands of millions of planets, and thousands of millions of Prime Operators. Most of them are probably a lot stronger than you are; many of them may be stronger than my partner and I are. I am not at all certain that you will pass even the first screening; but since you are without question a Prime Operator, I will deliver the message we came to deliver. Miss Mitala, do you want to listen or shall we drive it into you, too?" "I want to listen to anyone or anything who has a working starship and who can do what you have just done." "Very well," and Garlock told the general-distribution version of the story of the Galactic Service. "Quite interesting," Semolo said loftily, at its end. "Whether or not I would be interested depends, of course, on whether there's a position high enough for...." "I doubt very much if there's one low enough," Garlock cut in sharply. "However, since it's part of my job, I'll get in touch with you later. Okay, Belle." And in the Main--"What a jerk!" Belle exclaimed. "What a half-cooked, half-digested _pill_! I simply marvel at your forbearance, Clee. You should have turned him inside out and hung him up to dry--especially behind the ears!" Then, suddenly, she giggled. "But do you know what I did?" "I can guess. A couple of shots in the arm?"